


All of Me

by EmeraldSage



Series: The Holiday Collection [5]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Established Relationship, FACE Family, Human AU, Human Names, M/M, Protective Family, Secret Marriage Proposals, Secret Relationship, That was a SECRET!!!, angsty feels, feel the feels, lots of feels, shhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 08:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8741743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldSage/pseuds/EmeraldSage
Summary: RusAme Holiday Prompt #5: DecorationsThis Christmas, Alfred's going to get a very special surprise when he catches sight of one of the decorations on his family's Christmas Tree.  Now, how's he going to deal with his family's questions...Shorter than usual, so sorry!!![Human AU]Rated T out of caution





	

**Author's Note:**

> I read this while listening to “Young & Beautiful” by Lana del Rey from the Great Gatsby soundtrack. I found it incredibly fitting.
> 
> It's also a really family centered fic with the drama of romance added to it. I also felt like a mushy marshmallow while writing it, there were so many feels.

            “No, no, _Matthieu_ , take that _away_ from the tree,” his _papa_ ’s voice snapped, and he saw Matthew sigh as he stood from where he’d been trying to fit an ornament onto one of the boughs of their evergreen Christmas tree. Their _papa_ was standing, arms crossed imposingly, eyeing the ornament with particular distaste. Entirely unsurprising, in his mind, since for the last three years, they’d managed to sneak it onto the tree without his consent; their _papa_ utterly despised that ornament.

            Unsurprising, since it was proclaiming the superiority of their father’s cooking in the sloppy painted handwriting of both he and his elder twin. Their father had, er, _persuaded_ them to make the ornament at one of those paint and bake places when they were little, and had rewarded them with cake and ice cream every day of that week. Not only did their poor _papa_ have to deal with them on crazy sugar highs, but he also had to deal with that infernal ornament. And given that Arthur’s cooking was as black as ash and tasted little better, it was far from an accurate ornament, either.

            Sometimes, he and Matt would try and sneak it onto the tree just for fun – and sometimes, for the extra allowance their father would bribe them with should Francis see it on the tree after their official time limit. Once the limit had passed, no one could make any changes to the tree, save for in extenuating circumstances (and though Francis had argued that the ornament _was_ an extenuating circumstance, he’d been overruled; Alfred and Matthew had enjoyed their fifty dollar allowance bonus that Christmas).

            But it seemed that this Christmas, he wasn’t in the mood to properly appreciate the bickering that was going on in their house. He turned away from the argument his _papa_ and Matt were getting into, smiling tiredly, and knowing that no one was watching him watch the scene outside the window and the flickering lights around the neighbors’ houses. As much as it was good to be home, he missed being away at school.

            And, before anyone had a heart attack, it was _not_ because of the lack of lectures, harping professors, and colossal paper assignments that threatened him to give up his apartment lease and move into the library. It was more because of who he shared the apartment with.

            _Ivan_.

            It had been going on three years since he’d moved into his apartment, the lease held by an intimidating Russian student who’d been in desperate need of a roommate to help meet the monthly bills for the place, and whose last one had been frightened off by his attitude, though he’d honestly had no clue as to why. It had been three years since he, at the shy age of 19, had met his to-be roommate, who’d been three years older than him, but was finishing his senior year, and stolen his heart along with his telescope the first week they’d lived together.

            (He’d brought it back, of course, staring at him guiltily after three days of Alfred moaning about the loss of “his precious” and apologizing for “temporarily borrowing it without his permission,” claiming he would try not to do it again. It vanished again a week later. Three guesses who, and the first two don’t count.)

            The both of them being socially awkward space nerds from two different walks of life, but with similar interests, it had taken them almost the full year to actually get together (though when they did, they went all the way, full steam, and never looked back; Ivan certainly appreciated how his graduation present included becoming a very, _very_ lucky man). But they’d been inseparable ever since then, and Ivan had even taken a job in New York City just to stay with Alfred in the same apartment while the younger was finishing up school. And indeed, Alfred was in his senior year, finishing his double degree in astrophysics and marine biology, and currently hiding a very big secret from his very nosy family. Which brought him to the point he was currently agonizing over.

            His family didn’t know he was dating Ivan, let alone the _other_ secret he hadn’t told them about yet. Hell, they didn’t even know he was gay!

            He bit his lip guiltily, knowing that when he told his family they’d be absolutely devastated he had kept something like this from them, but he couldn’t help it! He kept getting nightmares about it – which was utterly ridiculous because he was Alfred F. Jones-Kirkland, and he _didn’t get nightmares_ – and they silently destroyed him from the inside out. Ivan knew about the nightmares – of course he knew, they slept in the same bed, and the other was a remarkably light sleeper – and it was the _only_ reason his lover hadn’t pressed him to tell his family about their relationship. But situations had changed, and with Ivan’s recent _question_ , the other man was pushing him to inform his family, and he, honestly, wanted nothing more.

            But the dreams, the doubt, and the little niggling facts about how his family, how his _father_ would take the truth…they drove him insane.

            His father was a proud man. A proud man, a stern man, and one who had very strong convictions and visions about who he was and how his children would turn out, and Alfred was the wild child – the wild card – that his father had never expected and never planned for. Oh, they knew about Matthew, his mind recalled bitterly, but they hadn’t planned for Alfred. Their surrogate had resolved to not get an ultrasound – wanting it to be a surprise for all three of them – so when Alfred had been born, a stunning _three days_ after his brother, coincidentally on American Independence Day, he’d taken the whole world by surprise. And growing up, Matthew had been the perfect son for both their parents, and Alfred had been the disappointment. Oh, he never doubted that both his parents loved him dearly, but he’d seen his father’s scowl directed at him more times than he’d seen his smile, and that _ached_ in a way he’d never be able to heal from.

            Ivan had healed some of the ache in his heart, accepting him wholeheartedly and without reserve for who he was: the crazy blond astrophysics major who was obsessed with cartoons and superheroes, who loved the stars as much as he loved whales, who was ditzy and careless and just a tad bit arrogant in a loveable way, and whose only goal in life was to _help people_. Ivan saw him for who he was and loved him regardless, and sometimes – on his worst days, when the darkness crawled out of his mind and into his life – he wondered how this wonderful, wonderful big bear of a man could do that for him when his own family could not.

            Abruptly, he bit down on his tongue, wincing at the pain and some of the blood he’d drawn, but it had stopped his eyes from watering, stopped the tears he could feel forming, and he inhaled deeply to try and regulate the emotions roiling through his body. He glanced over to where Francis and Matthew were still arguing over the tree’s decorations, noticing his father ignoring the fuss and working in his armchair by the fire, and sighed softly, a tad mournfully.

            He wanted Ivan with him (he’d never wanted anything more).

* * *

 

            And although Alfred had not seen it, had not noticed it, his oddly subdued state had caught the attention of all of his family members, and they had been observing him carefully from the moment he’d come home.

            And perhaps, if he had known about the gut-wrenching worry he’d been putting his father through – how the other had to drive himself to distraction only so that he would not worry as much over how his youngest child seemed to bear a cloak of misery, wrapped around him tighter than a hangman’s noose – he might have felt the divide that existed between the two of them begin to heal. But as it stood, Arthur felt no need to show his uncharacteristic and vulnerable emotions around his son, and so Alfred remained unaware of how concerned his actions – or lack of actions, to be specific – had worried his father.

            And despite how he strove to be the exact opposite of everything his father wanted him to be, it turns out that in expressing his more vulnerable emotions, they were exactly the same.

* * *

 

            A few mornings later, on Christmas Eve, they all woke with a startled shout coming from downstairs. Alfred practically tripped down the stairs, dressed only in his boyfriend’s overly large hockey sweater, his boxers, and a pair of warm, fuzzy socks, until he’d run into Matt, who’d stopped in the doorway leading into the living room from the hallway. Matthew, he’d noticed, hadn’t even realized it had been Alfred who’d crashed into him, and was staring at their father – who’d presumably made the startled shout – holding something in his hands, still dressed in his old man pajamas. Francis – wearing nothing but his boxers and his sleeping robe (an improvement from how he slept entirely naked and passed that trait on to Matthew, much to their father’s ire) – was studying the object, curiously, standing right next to Arthur, in front of their tree.

            “Whazzgoinon?” he slurred as he shoved past his brother, startling him out of his stupor (and into the awareness of his sudden lack of clothing) and drew the attention of his parents. His father glanced at him, and held up the object in his hand, which he realized was an ornament from the Christmas tree, only – now that he had a chance to look (squint) at it – it didn’t look like anything they’d ever put on their tree. “Is that a new ornament, dad?” he asked, curiously, and his father furrowed his brows.

            “If it is, none of us bought it,” Francis answered him smoothly, eyes drifting to him, then to Matthew, who’d reappeared with his bathrobe and a pair of boxers. “Do you boys recognize it?” He held it out to them, and they crowded around it curiously.

            It was a soft, pale pink, almost like Ivan’s scarf, he noted mentally, and in all honesty, that should’ve been the first hint. It was a flat, disk like shape with one side the pale pink, the other side a starry night sky that had been clearly hand painted. What took the cake, and what forced him to choke back his own reaction, was that the constellations in the starry night sky were spelling out something.

            No, not something: a question.

            _Will you marry me?_

            In **_Russian_**.

            And suddenly, he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe; his world had narrowed into the little question painted onto the night-sky ornament in a language that Ivan had painstakingly taught him until he could be in St. Petersburg and not be identified as foreign until someone _asked_. And he knew, he _knew_ , that Ivan had wanted to ask him something important – had wanted his family to know of their relationship, had wanted to meet them – but never in a million years did he think that _this_ was the question Ivan had wanted to ask him.

            And _Oh_ , but it was so much better than anything he’d been expecting. And just as quickly as his heart had stopped in the shock, it had started up and now it raced and soared. Because the man he loved, the man he’d been in a relationship with for three year, the man who’d seen him at his worst, at his utter drowning point and still stood by him, steadfast, had just _asked him to marry him_. And…

            His heart crashed and his blood froze.

            _And his family didn’t know_.

            He wanted to cry, to bawl, because this was all his fault. Ivan had pushed him to tell his family about their relationship – and he had honestly wanted to as well –but he hadn’t, and he’d just received a question that would lead to what he _knew_ would be the best decision of his life, and his family couldn’t share it with him because they _didn’t know_ , and it was _his fault_.

            So instead of saying something like, “What even is that? Did someone scribble over Dad’s favorite tea plate?” because his dad actually had a tea set in that pale pink color, and it _was_ technically possible, he said, “I know who did it,” so softly that for a second, he wasn’t sure he had actually said it.

            Except his father had heard him, and turned his attention squarely on him, and there was something imposing in those eyes, and absently remembered that both his parents spoke Russian – they’d worked in International Affairs with the Russian Government in their respective nations before they moved to North America to start a family – and that both of them _knew_ what the ornament said. Knew what it meant that _Alfred_ knew what it said and who had wrote it, because it certainly wasn’t meant for either of them, Mattie could speak Ukrainian – go figure – but not Russian, so by default, it had to be for….

            “ _Alfred,_ ” his father growled, “explain.”

            And he opened his mouth to explain – honestly, he did! – when he caught sight of pale pink and violet from behind the sheer, billowing curtains on their front window, and his heart stopped. Then, he was moving, before his parents had even registered the sudden silence from him. He was out the door – still dressed in nothing but socks, boxers, and Ivan’s old red and gold hockey sweater – before his family could blink, racing across the freshly fallen snow strewn all over their yard and the pavement, towards the man standing at the end of their driveway with the most unbearable expression of desperate hope, and armful of flowers in his grasp.

            The flowers dropped, arms opened up to catch him as Alfred launched himself into Ivan’s arms, and Ivan swung him up until he was clinging to the other man like a koala bear would to a eucalyptus tree. And, _oh_ , he was laughing and grinning – because Ivan was _here_ , his family would _know_ , and why had he ever doubted that this was everything he had always wanted – and leaning forwards to slant their mouths together as Ivan’s grip grew tighter, holding him up with his tremendous strength and willpower, relief coursing through his body, because every line in Alfred’s expression told the violet-eyed man _YES,_ and that’s all _he_ ever wanted.

            And then Alfred caught sight of his family, waiting on the front porch of their home, their expressions utterly and completely stunned (they never saw this coming, never thought it would be Alfred who’d found his love first, never even dreamed of seeing his smile so big, or so happy, or just utterly _in love_ and it made their guts clench that they’d never seen him like that before; so utterly _himself_ ).

            Matthew looks stunned, but he also looks happy. His eyes have a glint of protectiveness as well, which gave Alfred the feeling he should tell Ivan to be on the look out for Mattie’s hockey stick, but also made him warm and fuzzy inside that his brother cared (even though he knew, in his heart, that he always had). Francis looked torn between stunned, delighted, and mildly distraught. If there had been one person he hadn’t been worried about, it had been Francis; the man had always been trying to set the two of them up, had wanted nothing more than to see them in love and happy with their lives.

            But it was Arthur he looked to next; Arthur who was staring at him stunned, dumbfounded, but with a hint of fury in his eyes (knowing that Alfred had to have been in this relationship for a while – his boy didn’t give his heart out easily, that was one thing he knew for certain – and never said a word to him made him more furious than he’d ever been, but hurt so much he didn’t know if he could bear it). And then Arthur saw Alfred looking at him, blue eyes anxious, and his own softened, letting his son – _his little boy, oh, when did he grow up, where had the time gone_ – see the warmth and love in his gaze for once. And Alfred lit up, arms tightening around the man he was embracing, and turned to face said man to pull him into another kiss, long, sweet and loving.

            Because his family knew now, and they were happy for him. Sure, he’d receive one hell of a lecture (and probably a “grounding” from his father) for keeping this from him. His parents would scrutinize Ivan until the cows came home, making sure he was okay for their little boy, and Ivan would keep giving him those looks – _this is why you were worried?_ – that he knew he deserved, but would smile and pull him closer anyways (like he was doing now).

            He wondered, idly – as Ivan set him down and he was beset on all sides by his family, lectures and congratulations filling the air around them as they pulled him inside – if he’d ever feel more loved than he did now. Ivan’s hand twined with one of his, and he smiled.

            Now, that his family saw all of him, and refused to turn away.


End file.
